BADOGLIO OPPOSED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 24, 28 July 1943, Page 5

BADOGLIO OPPOSED

FIVE NEW PARTIES LONDON, July 27. The Turin newspaper "Stampa" has published a front-page proclamation signed by five new Italian parties, expressing their hostility to the Batlogho Government. They are the National Party, the Christian-Democracy Party, the Communist Party, the Liberal Reconstruction Party, and the Italian Socialist Party. The proclamation, which calls for severe punishment for Mussolini and the other Fascist officials, states: "The Badoglio Government is not wanted by the Italians." It continues: "The painful nightmare which has weighted down our political life for 20 years is over. Bestial passion has torn to bits the greater part of our national wealth and dragged the nation to war. Those responsible for the grave danger to the nation will be inexorably punished. Italians, our watchword is liberty." The Milan "Corriere della Sera" says in a leader: "Mussolini has gone. We are finally free. Nobody slept in Milan last night. We journalists worked with truth and enthusiasm. It is a difficult task to turn out a newspaper when for 20 years it has been dictated to us in entirety by the Press Ministry." The Italian news agency stated today that reports from towns throughout Italy showed that the change in the regime had in no way affected public order. Everywhere life was proceeding in an entirely normal way; all shops were open, the public services were functioning as usual, and the plants and factories were working at full production. "The demonstrations which occurred yesterday morning to extol the King-Emperor and the new regime," it added, "did not give rise to any incidents, and they took place in an atmosphere of high patriotism. Italian life henceforth will enter a phase of new and greater activity." Eome radio announced that banners and streamers bearing the words, "Long live free Italy!" were carried yesterday through the streets by ■ thousands of people. The King was greeted by a tremendous ovation when he appeared at a window in the Quirinal. BADOGLIO'S TASK. In Buenos Aires the pro-Fascist Italian-language daily' "Mattino d'ltalia" has published a dispatch from Rome stating that Mussolini reported to King Victor on Sunday night that he was prepared to resign in order to help solve the Government's problem. The Berne correspondent of the "New York Times" says that Badogliq's principal task will be to present a solid national front, and under its coyer negotiate an honourable capitulation rather than unconditional surrender, the difference in terms allowing Italy to save face. Italian diplomatic circles have denied semi-officially that such negotiations are already under way. The Reich still has strong forces on the peninsula, and this, it is believed, forced Marshal Badoglio to make his one reference to the war in his proclamation —"the war will continue." Marshal Badoglio will later have the problem of orderly and peaceful reconstruction without revolution, the correspondent says. His task is considered monumental, and diplomatic circles have reserved judgment on the probable duration of his tenure of office.